In this video I'm going to teach you a technique that therapists use in almost every session
but you probably didn't know about, and when you learn how to do it yourself you can change how you
think and feel. But to begin with I'm going to do something kind of weird, so just give me 30
seconds. And in case you didn't know, I use a lot of acceptance and commitment therapy.
And one of the things that comes with acceptance and commitment therapy is doing
experiential therapy, meaning therapy through experiences. So we don't just talk about,
we don't just, you know, think about our problems, but we try to create experiences
that lead to a change in our perspective. So that's what we're gonna do right now. Okay,
so 30 seconds. I just need you to answer this question: how is the desk the mother of the chair?
Go ahead and pause this video for 30 seconds and write down your answer in the comments
section. I'm really curious to hear your different answers. How is the desk the mother of the chair?
Okay so maybe you think the desk looks older so that's why. Or because the chair
is padded - that's an upgraded generation, so it must be newer. Maybe desks were created
before chairs in the history of humanity, so that's why the desk is the mother of the chair.
I've asked this question of dozens of clients, and I always get different answers, and they're all
great answers - and they're all wrong. The desk is not the mother of the chair. But when I asked you
that question your mind immediately began filling in that answer. Your mind is a story creator.
It automatically creates connections between things, trying to figure out how the world works.
And when it doesn't know why something happens, it makes its best guess. But when
it makes these guesses it doesn't feel like a guess; it feels like the truth.
And we do this over and over. These assumptions, these these stories create our reality.
Your unconscious interpretation of situations creates how you consistently feel and act.
So stick around because today we're talking about reframing.
Now once I was working with a client who was in her late 30s. She came to me with depression,
but the biggest difficulty in her life was that she wasn't married yet.
She lived in a culture where marriage and family were praised as the highest purposes of life,
and she longed to have a family of her own. The longer she went without getting married,
the more she wondered why. How come I can't find someone to love me?
She started to think maybe it's because I'm a bad person. Maybe it's because I'm not good enough to
get married. Maybe there's something defective or broken about me. Maybe I'm too unattractive. Then
one day she said something that, like, haunted me even more than her self-deprecating stories. She
said maybe the reason I haven't gotten married is because God doesn't want me to ruin any children.
Now up to that point we had been focused on other issues, but at that moment I knew we had to work
on this one. I knew I had to intervene, so I started to question that story. I mean,
I know this could sound bad and I didn't mean it this way, but I just asked her, like, to
look around and tell me if the only people who get married were perfect, attractive, saintly people.
She thought about it for a minute, and she could give me quite a few examples of unattractive,
mean, or unskilled people who had gotten married. Some of them had gotten married multiple times.
Now obviously it's possible to get married even with some really terrible characteristics.
Now obviously this this story, the the reason she had created that she wasn't married because
she's defective, this story was false. She was actually very kind, smart, hard-working,
healthy, attractive, just really good human being, so I asked her to question her narrative.
You know, what other ways could she think about the situation.
What if it's not about your goodness as a person, but there's just a skill you're missing.
Maybe you don't know how to date. Maybe you don't know how to dress. Maybe you don't know
how to be vulnerable. Yet these are skills that can be learned. From a religious perspective,
maybe it's not in God's plan yet. Maybe there's something else for you to learn through this
process. From another perspective, maybe it's a problem of numbers. There are more eligible women
than men in her community. Maybe it's because guys are intimidated by you. Maybe it's because guys
don't know how to date anymore. Maybe it's because our culture downplays the value of marriage.
I mean, what if this isn't about you at all? As my client questioned her stories, some space
opened up for her to do something different. So instead of believing the first story that
came to her mind, which was, you know, I'm just defective, she changed her story to what skills
can I learn? Se started exploring her negative self-talk and replacing it with self-compassion.
She started dating differently. She started allowing herself to be a little more vulnerable.
And within a year she'd met a good man, and within two years she was married to him. Now
in this situation the way she was interpreting her challenge was creating a roadblock for her.
How we consistently see problems, how we interpret life, that creates our reality.
One of the ways that we can change our life is by opening up some space for new stories.
I like to use the six-pack exercise to do this. I have no idea why it's called the six-pack
exercise. The trainer who taught me this, he was not into beer and he was not into ab workouts, so
your guess is as good as mine. But this exercise is all about creating space around our thinking
so that we can hopefully choose which set of stories to believe, which set of stories we want
to act on. And when we do this we can change how we feel and we can solve problems in our lives.
Let's use an example of someone who's really frustrated with their roommate, right,
so she keeps leaving her dishes out. It's selfish, it's dirty, and it's embarrassing when I have
guests over, right. This person feels like I I get so stressed out and angry about this. Okay,
so that's the example we're gonna use. Um, take a look at your interpretations. These are what I'm
calling stories, right. The easiest interpretation is she is so selfish. I'm being mistreated.
Or I'm the clean one, the good roommate, and she's the bad one. Um, all of these thoughts leave you
feeling angry. Great, how helpful is that, right? Do these stories give you the power to act?
Are they truthful? Does it give you any room to resolve your emotions?
The way that I'm thinking about this problem, the story I'm telling myself, you know,
she's being awful. I'm innocent. She's ruining my life. This makes me angry, and it gives me no room
to act. Now just for fun I want you to think of six other ways to interpret the actions of this,
um, this roommate who's not doing her dishes, right. Take a look at your assumptions about
why she's doing what she's doing. And just to clarify before we do this, right, these stories,
these new ideas, this six-pack of ideas, they don't have to be helpful, correct,
or accurate. You just make something up, right. Here's a few examples of stories:
she's doing this out of spite. She's doing it just to bug me; she knows that I don't like it.
Here's another one: maybe I'm just a terrible human being who deserves to be treated badly.
Okay, now obviously, right, this is obviously an unhelpful interpretation,
but what we're doing right now, we're not judging; we're just exploring
alternatives. Okay, maybe she just comes from a different background and doesn't know how to wash
dishes, or culturally she's used to her mom doing it and she's not aware that it's up to her.
Maybe she's completely overwhelmed. She's struggling with depression or she can't
cope with life in school in a job and a boyfriend, right. Maybe she has no idea that it even bugs me.
Maybe I can learn something from this like how to communicate my expectations or how to serve
someone. It literally takes me five seconds to put her cereal bowl in the sink. Okay,
so there's my six stories, my six pack. Okay, and just to show you that there are so many more ways
to interpret a situation, I'm just gonna throw out four more, right. Maybe her dish system is just
different than mine. Maybe she likes to do them at night or first thing in the morning. Maybe she's a
space alien from another planet where there was a magical ray that cleaned the dishes automatically.
Maybe I'm actually the one being way too uptight about cleanliness, you know, maybe I'm being rude
by demanding that the dishes get done immediately, I'm the one letting rigidity get in the way of
nice feelings in the apartment. Maybe she has ADD or a brain injury and has a hard time following
through on tasks right now. Some of these might seem a little out there, a little bit unrealistic,
right, like the space alien one. That's okay. Just because we think something doesn't mean it's true,
but how we consistently think leads to how we feel. So my thought she's so selfish leads to
me feeling angry. Thinking I deserve to be mistreated left me feeling depressed.
Thinking maybe she's completely overwhelmed helped me feel compassion for her. And thinking what if
she doesn't know what bugs me gave me a little hope that things could improve if I talk to her.
You can choose how you consistently feel by choosing which stories, which interpretation of
situations you consistently believe. When we can only see things one way, we are rigid, inflexible,
and we often feel powerless to act. When we open ourselves up to different ways of seeing,
we can choose which thoughts line up with the values that we want to act on.
So here's the technique that therapists use all the time. It's called reframing. Reframing is
when a therapist says something like let's look at this from another perspective. And now from my
previous story you know how to do this yourself. So check out the workbook activity. It's called
the six-pack exercise. Think of the last time you got really bugged at someone. Close your eyes
and for a minute just put yourself back in that situation. What were you feeling and what were you
thinking about that person? And then use your own example to create at least six different ways of
seeing the problem. If you catch yourself getting really stuck on right or wrong or true or false
you may be creating unnecessary rigidity. I am not saying that all stories are equal; I'm saying that
the process of considering alternatives, it's this process that frees us to choose healing.
So allow yourself to explore different ways of seeing things, and then after you've opened up
to seeing these different alternatives, then you can choose a story that's most helpful for you.
Here are three questions you could ask yourself that may be helpful in deciding which story you
want to act on. Question number one: is my story truthful? And you gotta check your stories for
self-deception, self-justification, and cognitive distortions. We're gonna be talking about all of
these in upcoming sections, and then after we've, you know, checked our stories for untruths we can
then choose between a variety of stories based on our values. And that leads to question number two:
is my story kind? Now kindness is one of my values, right, so I want to choose a story that
lines up with the kind of person I want to be. So do you value giving people the benefit of doubt?
Do you value looking for the best in people or assuming that they have some good reason behind
their actions, no matter how frustrating their actions may be? Choose a narrative that's both
truthful and helps you live your values. You want to choose a story that works for you, not against
you. And I would say in general kindness leaves you feeling happier and more peaceful than anger,
right, but there are definitely some times for setting boundaries and protecting yourself.
Okay question number three: does my story give me the power to act? So focusing on whether the
situation is good or bad or, you know, whether your roommate's a jerk or you're a jerk, right,
that all leaves us powerless. Asking instead, you know, where's my locus of control, how can
I change or influence this situation? When when we have a story that gives us a little bit of power
in our situation, this is going to give us more ability to choose ,you know, what we're going to
do and how we're going to feel. Gandhi said, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
Am I getting so bugged about the situation that I'm acting the same or worse than the person I'm
bugged at? So I mean, for example, you think about a parent yelling at their child "Don't yell,"
right, or someone being so mad at another person for refusing to forgive them. Check yourself for
the value that you'd like to see, and then ask am I living that? Those three questions can help
us get a little bit of clarity on which story we want to choose and act on. But what if we feel too
stuck even to do the six-pack exercise or to ask ourselves the three questions about our stories?
Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our stories that we can't see the situation any other way.
Sometimes we get stuck in seeing the other person as awful, horrible, terrible, even when you're no
saint yourself. And sometimes the reality is that the other person really is being awful.
But regardless of the other's actions, we need to find a way to personal peace. When we get so
sunk into our own perspective and we can't get out we need to step back, slow it down,
and reach out to our resources. So here's a couple of things you can try when you feel stuck in how
you're seeing a situation. Take a break from the situation. This gives you a chance to come back to
it later when your head's clear. Do some activity that helps you feel calm, loving, and open.
Maybe it's playing the guitar or watching a funny show or going for a walk or getting
out in nature or praying about it. Write about the problem. See if you can get some clarity that way.
And another thing that can be helpful but comes with a caution is getting another person's
perspective, right. It can be helpful to hear what someone else has to say about a situation,
but you've got to look out for depending on others for justification or rationalization
of your story. So I'm going to encourage you if you're going to use this one find
someone who doesn't always agree with you, and then listen to them for perspective.
When you slow things down and you try to get other perspectives, you open yourself up to having more
choice in your life. One of the most powerful ways to take a situation that makes you feel helpless
and turn it into a situation that empowers you is to use a growth mindset. And what this means
is that with each challenge I face, instead of using "Oh, this is awesome, this is good" or
using "This is a bad, uh, situation," right, instead of using that kind of mindset, I ask
myself what can I learn from this? Or how can this experience help me become a better person?
When we consider problems from this perspective, we can almost always find some way to grow in
strength. Sometimes I even pretend that everyone else is a robot just sent here to test me,
to test how I'm going to react to a certain situation and whether I'm going to do it
with integrity. The bottom line is we make an interpretation of every circumstance in our life,
and our interpretations, our stories create our reality. They color our view and they determine
how we feel and how we act. But if we can learn to notice our stories, we can choose which ones we're
going to give our energy to, and that can free you to change how you feel and solve more problems.
Basically, learning the skill of reframing is a key to living a happier life.
This video is one skill from my 30-skill course: How to Process Your Emotions,
where I teach 30 of the most essential skills for resolving depression, anxiety,
and improving mental health. Emotion processing is an essential skill for working through intense
emotions, but most people have never been taught how to do it. I'm putting every single
main video lesson on YouTube for the world to access for free. You watching these videos,
sharing them, contributing to my Patreon and my sponsors make this possible.
If you would like to access the entire course in one place ad free with its workbook, exercises,
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